# Foulest tasting medicine **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 21, 2010, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881 "2010-01-21T19:02:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Goblin\_Queen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4da419/32.png) [@Goblin\_Queen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Goblin_Queen)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881/61 "2010-01-22T21:36:16Z")
My list: 1. Some clearish liquid I vaguely remember taking as a child, probably for bronchitis. It was thin, so could be knocked back quickly, but I swear the aftertaste was exactly like bile and took about half a gallon of water to wash away. 2. Winning the award for most obvious negative response is Pepto-Bismol, which is like bright-pink chalk-flavored pudding. I was given some as a child to soothe an upset stomach, and immediately puked. I did feel better after that, though it certainly wasn’t the result of the medicinal properties of the Pepto! 3. Echoing **Lynn Bodoni** ’s mention of Immodium AD. As a child (apparently I had to take more disgusting medicine as a child than as an adult–of course, I haven’t been an adult for very long…anyway) I couldn’t manage to take pills. So if I had diarrhea, my mom would crush the immodium with the back of a spoon and mix it with water. VILE. I’m so glad I accidentally swallowed a sweettart eventually and realized that taking pills wouldn’t choke me. ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881/62 "2010-01-22T21:43:51Z")
I can’t remember what it’s called, but this stuff I had to take when I was a kid and had some kind of ick (don’t even remember what it was anymore) wins for me. All I remember was that it was clear with just a touch of yellow, and it had this horrible acidic sour taste…ugh! Vile, vile stuff. On the other hand, tetracycline tasted pretty good. It was dark pink and thick and tasted like a cross between Dr. Pepper and strawberry milkshake. Might have been the same thing another poster referred to earlier. Topping my list of “things almost everybody hates but I love the taste of” is Kaopectate. My mom used to give it to me when I was young, and I absolutely _adored_ the taste of the normal, non-specially-flavored variety. It was gray, chalky, and you’d think it would be horrible, but I could have chugged the whole bottle if she’d let me. Nowadays I almost regret that it’s been many years since I’ve had any need for the stuff, because I still love the taste. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881/63 "2010-01-22T22:06:27Z")
From the old country: Zorritone > **[Electronics, Cars, Fashion, Collectibles & More | eBay](https://www.ebay.com/)** > > Buy & sell electronics, cars, clothes, collectibles & more on eBay, the world's online marketplace. Top brands, low prices & free shipping on many items. Balsam+, Menthol+, Peppermint Oil+, Eucalyptus Oil+. Other Ingredients: Xanthan Gum, Vitamin A Palmitate, Cholecalciferol. So foul that the maker gave it a name and logo to riff on “Zorrillo”, that is Spanish for skunk. I have no idea what the guys that came with that name and logo about 40 years ago where thinking of, but with something so foul tasting there was not much of a choice and amazingly the product is still sold to this day. As I experienced it, my impression was that it was in part effective because many kids did turn very quiet and made more of an effort stop coughing, so the parents would not bring another dose of the stuff to your mouth. ---
**Author:** ![madrabbitwoman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c37758/32.png) [@madrabbitwoman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madrabbitwoman)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2010, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881/64 "2010-01-23T00:41:16Z")
> [@BigBertha](#): > > Myabe they were different when I was younger. I did chew them and they weren’t bad. I am unable to swallow pills larger than the little birth control ones. At times, I have been unfortunate enough to not find liquid versions and once had to take this gigantic one antibiotic. I couldn’t, so crushed it. Try that sometime and see how wonderful aspirin tastes by comparison. I used to love aspirin crushed up in jam - it was almost sherbety - now tha I am an adult I make myself swallow the damn things ---
**Author:** ![notfrommensa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f14d63/32.png) [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2010, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881/65 "2010-01-23T04:09:18Z")
You people are making me glad that I have been relatively healthy all my life. I will let you know my secret for taking pills. I put about an ounce (1 swallow) of water in my mouth. Tip my head so the water goes to the back of the mouth. Drop the pill and swallow as soon as the pill hits the water. the amount of time the pill sits in mouth is \< 0.1 seconds. Chugging beers and doing shots of whiskey is good practice. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2010, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881/66 "2010-01-23T07:04:47Z")
> [@](#): > > Winning the award for most obvious negative response is Pepto-Bismol, which is like bright-pink chalk-flavored pudding. I was given some as a child to soothe an upset stomach, and immediately puked. I did feel better after that, though it certainly wasn’t the result of the medicinal properties of the Pepto! My husband had about this same experience when he was a child. To this day, he insists that Pepto is foul tasting and that he can’t take liquid medicines. He’s going to be 52 in a couple of weeks. He needs a colonoscopy. He’s going to have a very interesting time drinking that bowel prep solution. ---
**Author:** ![Walpurgis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/7ea924/32.png) [@Walpurgis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walpurgis)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2010, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881/67 "2010-01-23T10:25:08Z")
I had to take liquid Penicillin as a kid, and it was supposed to be… fudge or licorice-flavoured? Something like that. It was vile. And it smelled exactly like that coconut-scented sun oil people used to slather on themselves back in the 80’s. I still get acutely nauseous whenever I smell that particular scent. Thankfully it’s not widely used these days. ---
**Author:** ![flodnak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/838e76/32.png) [@flodnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flodnak)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2010, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881/68 "2010-01-23T10:41:24Z")
> [@LurkerInNJ](#): > > If you store it in the fridge and drink it cold, it doesn’t taste bad at all. Which brings us to a trick for taking foul-tasting liquid medicines, assuming they don’t need to stay stuck to the throat or to be taken on an empty stomach: Put a small glass of a sweet liquid you enjoy in the freezer for 10-15 minutes. Take a few sips of the ice cold drink. Immediately slug back the medicine as quickly as you can. (If it’s really, really foul, hold your nose, too.) Use the rest of the ice cold drink as a chaser. My kids have each had two ear infections that called for antibiotics. And both of them, the second time, were given an antibiotic liquid with a caramel-liquorice flavoring. Urk. That doesn’t even sound good. ---
**Author:** ![Walpurgis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/7ea924/32.png) [@Walpurgis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walpurgis)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2010, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881/69 "2010-01-23T10:51:42Z")
> [@flodnak](#): > > My kids have each had two ear infections that called for antibiotics. And both of them, the second time, were given an antibiotic liquid with a caramel-liquorice flavoring. Urk. That doesn’t even sound good. Nyargh, that’s it! That’s the one! I can’t remember what it’s called, but since you’re in Norway and I’m in Sweden I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the same vile substance. Don’t expose your kids to coconut scented sunscreen, I’m telling ya… ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2010, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881/70 "2010-01-23T10:59:19Z")
Crush xanax up into a powder and eat it that way ---
**Author:** ![Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/face_intentionally_left_blank/32/288_2.png) [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Face_Intentionally_Left_Blank)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2010, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881/71 "2010-01-23T11:05:44Z")
> [@Nars\_Glinley](#): > > Upper GI’s aren’t that bad. Far better than a Lower GI IMHO. > > ETA: My vote is for prednisone. I’m sure there are worse out there, but prednisone is not good. No, not at all. It’s a bitter, nasty taste that lasts for HOURS. 3 or 4 hours after taking them, I can still taste them. I’m on prednisone right now, and I’m actually a little embarrassed by the extent I’ll go to in order to avoid that taste. Lately I’ve been rolling each pill in a little scrap of bread before swallowing them. A lot of Pepto Bismol hate around here. I kinda like it. Tastes just like [Canada Mints](http://www.neccostore.com/canada-mints-wintergreen.pd). ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2010, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881/72 "2010-01-23T22:21:28Z")
> [@freckafree](#): > > I came in here to post that very thing – Elixer of [Terpin Hydrate](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terpin_hydrate). Nasty stuff. > > **Clothahump** , I think this is your “telephone pole” medicine. It was derived from turpentine. I believe you are right. Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mona_Lisa_Simpson)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2010, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881/73 "2010-01-23T22:56:14Z")
Zopiclone (immovane) 7.5 mg cut in half tastes so horrible it ruins the flavours of what I eat the next day. I was having trouble sleeping on one particularly brutal schedule at work, and a doctor prescribed me Zopiclone. First one knocked me out cold for 14 hours, (glad I tried the first one on a “day off”) so I cut one in half. Next one knocked me out too, but the taste was so brutal. Something bitter and metallic and it felt like it was going into my cells and changing the receptors for taste. Everything tasted bad after that. I even tried eating a small bit of straight butter to coat my mouth but the bad taste just bubbled up from below. I finally figured out drinking something really bitter the next morning would counteract the bad taste. But I also decided that drugs weren’t for me, and I eventually just got out of that job and started sleeping better. ---
**Author:** ![Countrypolitan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/858c86/32.png) [@Countrypolitan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Countrypolitan)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2010, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881/74 "2010-01-25T02:32:35Z")
I had penicillin when I had my wisdom teeth out–between the pain and the banana blech aftertaste, it was so much fun! Cephalexin is horrid, too. I’ve had to give it to both my cat and my dog, and used to tell them it wasn’t sooo bad. Then I took it, sorry about that Kitteh, no wonder you foamed at the mouth. Kaopectate isn’t good anymore, they changed the formula to the same as Pepto. Now only the pet version has kaolin and pectin. ---
**Author:** ![loshan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ce73a5/32.png) [@loshan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/loshan)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2010, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881/75 "2010-01-25T03:03:43Z")
Nyostatin. NASTY. I have had to take it for the last two weeks. It is a “swish & swallow” medication for oral thrush. However, my mouth hurt so bad that even though it makes me gag, I have kept on schedule…and it is working, finally. ---
**Author:** ![Wile\_E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c37758/32.png) [@Wile\_E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wile_E)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2010, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881/76 "2010-01-25T17:14:32Z")
> [@badbadrubberpiggy](#): > > My cats recently had to take an antibiotic. > > For some mysterious reason, it’s cherry-flavored. While cherry-flavored is OK for humans and rodents, why cats? They probably thought it was as foul as anything they’d ever had to eat before. Why not meat-flavored? Amoxicillin is the most common antibiotic and the suspensions are always cherry flavor, even the veterinary formulations. It’s cheaper to buy the generic human formulations because there’s really no benefit to the veterinary kind and it would make it much more expensive to have it compounded in animal friendly flavors. > [@beowulff](#): > > My doctor gave me a handful of flagyl to take one time, and he said “swallow them all at once.” > I asked him why, and he said “because they taste like shit.” > > No kidding. Man that’s some nasty tasting medicine - even gulping them down all at once, the intensely bitter taste nearly made me gag. This gets my vote for worst. I took metronidazole (Flagyl) once, and I could taste it for hours and felt like I was going to vomit the entire time. I didn’t take any more doses and the problem cleared up anyway. I think that one dose scared it out of me. By the way, this is possibly the hardest medication to give to cats. The standard sizes mean you usually have to break up a pill for a cat’s dosage but if the cat gets a little taste of the pill it will drool and fight tooth and nail to get away from that nastiness. So we get it compounded in a suspension, they still hate it. ---
**Author:** ![maladroit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f475e1/32.png) [@maladroit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maladroit)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2010, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881/77 "2010-01-25T19:02:24Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Last summer, MilliCal had a sudden and sharp pain in her side that wouldn’t go away. We were all thinking “appendicitis” as we took her to the hospital emergency room. In order to perform the definitive test using the CAT scan, they had to have her drink four big cups of some sensitizing agent. It was mixed with some flavoring, but apparently it didn’t cover up the taste, merely altering it. > > even in the face of emergency room necessity, it took MilliCal a truly major effort to eventually chug down the bare minimum of that stuff. OIn fact, it took a major effort to get her to get _any_ of it down. > > She was fine, by the way. With her having had to swallow all that awful-tasting stuff, you perversely found yourself wishing that maybe she’d actually _have_ appendicitis, so as not to waste all that effort. Glad she was ok. Is that the stuff that looks like a big glass of Elmer’s Glue? The trick is to chug it, no sipping. The foulest tasting medicine/herbal I’ve ever had is valerian root. I take it capsule form and the burps are awful. They sell it in tea form but I can’t imagine brewing a cup of that nasty stuff. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Nene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/da6949/32.png) [@El\_Nene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Nene)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2010, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881/78 "2010-01-25T19:07:32Z")
I had some sort of eye irritation a couple of years ago and my eye doctor prescribed the most disgusting eye drops ever. They made Buckley’s taste like a vanilla sundae. No, I did not drink the eye drops. I used them as prescribed. ---
**Author:** ![maisoui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@maisoui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maisoui)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881/79 "2010-01-26T00:53:32Z")
Docusate sodium (Colace) drops. I am taking pain killers that, um, bind me up, and this was the remedy. Oh.My.Word. That is nasty! They suggest putting one or two drops into half a cup of fruit juice or milk. That just makes you have to drink half a cup of nasty. I prefer the constipation, thankyouverymuch! ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881/80 "2010-01-26T09:06:01Z")
> [@maisoui](#): > > Docusate sodium (Colace) drops. I am taking pain killers that, um, bind me up, and this was the remedy. Oh.My.Word. That is nasty! They suggest putting one or two drops into half a cup of fruit juice or milk. That just makes you have to drink half a cup of nasty. I prefer the constipation, thankyouverymuch! dude - get any diabetic candy sweetened with sugar alcohols and just do one piece over the ‘serving size’ … cleans me right the hell out! I really can recommend the faux tootsie rolls by Russell Stover, available at most grocery stores…I don’t see why they still give people golitely crap when all you need is those:smack: [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881.md?page=5)